Welcome back to the Learn English podcast, the podcast teaching English in context so you can learn naturally.
My name is Dr. C and I am a TESL certified English teacher.
I teach English online to students who are learning it as a second language.
I created this podcast to become a resource for you to help you with your vocabulary, fluency and knowledge of American culture.
On today's episode, we are going to focus on the fluency and American culture aspects because we are going to discuss classic Christmas movies.
Now, I did a similar episode, episode number eight, to be exact, that focused on Halloween movies and recommendations.
So if you are interested in that and you haven't listened or seen it, please go back and check that episode out.
But on today's episode, we are going to focus on Christmas films.
These movies, I would say, are considered classics, which means they are going to be a little bit older and they're considered to be some of the best Christmas movies, at least here in the United States.
Now, that doesn't mean that the storyline is necessarily amazing, even though some of them are really good.
But more so has to do with the fact that these are the films that come up every Christmas season.
On the last episode, I mentioned how Christmas has this very specific culture.
It comes with its own songs, TV shows and movies.
And these movies that I'm going to discuss today are the films that come up every year.
They're shown on TV every year in the United States.
People watch them every year, and they've been watching them for decades, which means that they've watched them with their grandparents and their parents, and now they're watching them with their children or even their grandchildren.
So these films have been around for so many years.
They are loved by the American public in general and they bring up that nostalgia feeling.
They remind people of their childhood, they remind people of spending time with their family, and they have that nice kind of cozy message to them.
In the end, everything works out right and everybody is happy and it's Christmas time and everybody's enjoying their life.
That's pretty much the ending to all of these films.
So these are feel good movies that people enjoy watching.
And that's why they have that connection with them.
So I'm excited to share these with you, and with that, let's get started.
The first movie that we are going to discuss is Miracle on 34th Street.
Now I mentioned before that these are classic films and so these are older.
These movies tend to be older films that have been around for decades and that is definitely the case with this first one.
The original Miracle on 34th Street came out in 1947 and the plot of the film is that the real Santa Claus, the real Kris Kringle decides to come and work at a Macy's department store.
Now if you're not familiar with the term Macy's, Macy's is a department store.
It's a store that's here in the United States that sells clothing and jewelry and cosmetics, the typical items that you would find at a department store.
And Macy's has something that's called a Macy's Thanksgiving parade.
So every Thanksgiving in New York, Macy's sponsors this parade and that has televised every Thanksgiving and it's a form of advertising, of course.
Their name gets out there in front of the American public right before all the sales come out and so it's a way of advertising.
Their New York store is something we would call a flagship store.
It's something that is like the big Macy's, the hub of Macy's, the probably most iconic out of all of them, the most recognizable out of any of the Macy's stores.
And that has to do with the plot of this film.
So there is someone who is hired to play Santa Claus in the Macy's Thanksgiving parade and it turns out that he is a drunk, he is intoxicated and the real Santa Claus is very upset with this and gets hired to take his place and then gets hired on to play Santa at the Macy's department store.
Again, this is another aspect of American culture because it used to be more popular when malls were more popular in the 1980s and 90s, for example, but even now there are malls that have Santa Claus during the Christmas time.
They hire someone to play Santa Claus and then children go and take their picture and tell Santa what they would like for Christmas and that's what the real Santa Claus ends up doing.
Of course, along the way he meets people, he convinces them that he is the real Santa Claus, he changes their lives and in the end, everyone ends up happier because they've been able to interact with the real Santa and they've had their faith restored in Christmas and in Santa Claus.
This movie was remade.
So the original version, again, is from 1947 and the newer version is from 1994.
So still not incredibly new, but if you're more interested in watching a newer version, you can definitely watch the newer version of the story.
I don't think it's Macy's that's mentioned in it.
I think it's called Cole's department store instead, but the same concept, the real Santa Claus gets involved with a family's life and everything ends up better for it.
The original movie won Academy Awards and like I said, it is this Christmas classic that people enjoy watching in and love to watch every year.
So if you're interested, just like in the last episode that I did, I will leave a link for the Just Watch website.
I have nothing to do with this website.
It's not a promotion for them.
It's just a website that lets you type in the name of a movie and you can see what streaming services it's on or if you have to actually rent it.
If you don't live in the United States, I don't believe this works for you.
So you'd have to find some other way of figuring out how to find them.
But I will leave it in the description of this episode.
So if you are in the United States, you can look up these movies and see if they're on streaming or if they're available where you are to watch them.
The second film on our list is 1994 is the Santa Claus.
This is the first film that started a franchise starring Tim Allen as the main character.
Tim Allen's character in this is called Scott Calvin and to understand the plot, you have to understand a little bit about the mythology of Christmas here in the United States.
So part of the things that children get told about Santa Claus is that every Christmas Eve, he goes to everyone's house and leaves them presents and how he gets into your house is that he lands on the roof, he comes down your chimney and then he leaves you gifts.
With that in mind, let's talk a little bit about the plot of this movie.
The basic idea is that Tim Allen's character, Scott Calvin, has lost his faith in Christmas, which is very common in these films.
And one day or on Christmas Eve, I should say he causes an accident.
So what happens is that he causes Santa Claus to actually fall from the roof.
And because of that, Santa Claus is not able to actually deliver all of his gifts.
Tim Allen's character then has to take over and has to finish the job.
He has to deliver these presents to all these children around the world, and then that takes him to the North Pole where he finds out that he has to become the new Santa.
It's a comedy. It follows the basic storylines where someone starts out not believing in Christmas and has this surreal experience with Santa Claus and ends up becoming a true believer in Christmas or in this case becomes the new Santa Claus himself.
And it's a fun comedy movie, one of those feel good films.
If you're interested in watching it, as I said, this film became so popular that it actually started a franchise of movies.
So if you watch this first one and you enjoy it, there is a second and a third that you could also watch.
I would say this is probably the better one, usually when you're talking about franchises, the first film is the best out of them.
But it is one of those comedies, again, feel good movie, easy watch if you are interested in checking it out.
The third film on our list is A Charlie Brown Christmas.
This is another one of those films that is just an absolute classic here in the United States.
It came out in 1965 and has been shown on television every Christmas season.
So there are generations of Americans who grew up watching this film every year on television.
It's considered to be a movie, but it has a very short runtime.
It is only 25 minutes long.
And that is in part because it is an animated film based on Charlie Brown and the characters of the Peanuts comic strip.
If you're not sure what that is, Peanuts comic strip has Charlie Brown and Snoopy, probably the two most recognizable characters and also their friends, Lucy, Linus, et cetera.
This was the first of the specials to air on television.
And there are others.
There is a Charlie Brown Thanksgiving and Halloween specials.
So if you like this one and you want to watch the other two, you can find those as well.
The plot for this is that Charlie Brown is depressed.
Even though it's Christmas time, he is sad about the commercialization of Christmas, how everything is about buying things.
And he's just not really in the Christmas spirit, but he and his friends are putting on a Christmas play.
He goes to a Christmas tree farm and is only able to get just the saddest little Christmas tree.
I would say from this film, one of the most recognizable things on the most iconic things is the Charlie Brown Christmas tree.
And it's just this little tiny tree that is so weak.
When he puts a Christmas ornament on it, it bends over and it just looks like it's about to break.
There's hardly any branches and it just does not look like the typical Christmas tree, but it's cute.
The gang comes together, his friends come together and they decorate the tree and they realize the true meaning of Christmas.
So again, it's one of those feel good movies, one of those little happy films that you can watch, and it's family friendly because it is an animated Peanuts movie.
People start watching it when they're children.
And like I said, by now they've watched it for years because it is one of those classic, classic Christmas films.
Our fourth film is A Christmas Story.
A Christmas Story focuses on a nine year old boy.
His name is Ralphie Parker, and it's set in the 1940s.
So part of the plot is that Ralphie really wants this rifle, this air rifle for Christmas.
That is where he wants to get for Christmas as his Christmas gift, but everyone around him is very discouraging and they tell them that he'll shoot his eye out with it, that he shouldn't get this gun.
That is the main plot.
However, the story is told in a series of vignettes.
So vignettes are little mini stories, little brief periods of time where it shows some type of situation occurring, not necessarily integral to the plot, we would say, not really pushing the plot forward, but just showing you everyday life around Ralphie.
So there is little stories about his parents, his friends, activities at school, and the story is just overall told in these series of vignettes.
The movie originally came out in 1983, and it's one of those films that we say has become a cult classic.
Now, I mentioned this when I did the Halloween Recommendations, one of the films I talked about at that time was Hocus Pocus.
And Hocus Pocus, when it first came out, was not very popular.
But over the years, people started watching it at home, and then it became much more popular years after it got released and became this classic Halloween film.
And that's pretty much the story that happened with a Christmas story.
So when it first came out, it came out around Thanksgiving time of 1983, and it was well received by critics.
It got good reviews, but it just wasn't that popular.
People didn't really go and see it in the movie theater.
However, the film got played a lot on television, and it would be played on reruns during the Christmas season.
And people also started watching it on VHS and eventually DPD at home.
And that's what caused it to become so popular.
Every year, like I said, it gets played.
Every year, people start quoting the film, the you'll shoot your eye out part is probably the most memorable line of the film.
So you'll hear people say that.
And it's just, again, one of those family friendly movies because it is around a nine -year -old.
Now, again, you can kind of see the aspects of American culture because he wants an air rifle and that's what he gets for Christmas.
So maybe a different type of gift than what you would get in other places.
But it is one of those classic films and gets debated, gets thrown up to be one of the top three Christmas movies of all time, probably one of the most beloved Christmas films here in the United States.
And the last movie on our list is considered to be the greatest Christmas movie of all time.
And that movie is It's a Wonderful Life.
This movie came out in 1946, so I will say that it is in black and white.
But it is considered to be the all time classic.
The film focuses on a character named George Bailey.
So what happens is that George Bailey works for a bank and there is a little bit of a scandal.
There is some missing money and George realizes that there is going to be a problem because of this missing money.
There is going to be a scandal.
There are going to be criminal charges and he becomes very depressed because of this.
And he goes to a bridge and is contemplating, is thinking about ending his life.
Now, there has been an angel who has been assigned to guard him, to watch over him, his guardian angel, whose name is Clarence.
Probably one of the most iconic lines in cinema has to do with this movie.
And that is that when you hear a bell sound in the in the movie, it means that an angel has gotten its wings.
So of course, by the end of his movie, you hear the bell and George's daughter says every time a bell rings, an angel gets his wings.
The film itself, when it came out, was not well received.
It is definitely a cult classic in that it became more popular years after it got released, but not in the same way as a Christmas story was.
So a Christmas story was very well received, got very good reviews.
It just wasn't very popular at the movie theaters.
This film was not that.
When this film first came out, it got very mixed reviews.
Critics did not like it.
People in general did not like it.
It was not a very well received movie and it was considered to be an actual failure at the time.
It wasn't for many decades until this film actually became popular.
So in the 1970s, the film became royalty free or copyright free, we would say.
So that meant that TV channels could play the film and not actually have to pay any money for it.
Of course, that's what they ended up doing at the time.
This was before cable and streaming.
So there weren't many TV channels in general, and anything that was put on television at the time was generally watched.
People didn't really have that many options.
And so they watched whatever was put on the major networks.
When this film got added to the rotation, when this film started getting played every Christmas season, people would watch it.
And it became way more well received than it ever was when it first came out.
People started watching it every Christmas.
People started enjoying it and really liking it.
And it became this part of the Christmas identity and the Christmas culture here in the United States.
The American Film Institute actually had it on their list of the greatest films of all time.
Not Christmas films.
Like I said, it's already considered to be the best Christmas film, but just in general, out of all films in general, it was listed as number 20 of the greatest of all time and number one as the most inspirational film of all time.
That really shows you where this is in terms of how Americans love this movie, how Americans embrace this movie, and it's really become that classic Christmas film here in the United States.
Like I said, this movie is from the 1940s, so it isn't black and white.
It is an older film.
However, it definitely is considered to still be an amazing movie.
So if you're interested in watching that, please do get, check it out, give it a watch in and see what you think.
If you're here in the United States around Christmas time, you might also see advertisements for a musical or play version of this film.
I've seen it as a musical version in my local community.
It's just such a popular story.
It gets put on as a musical usually in December around this time of year before Christmas.
So if you see that, of course, go check it out.
See what you think.
Those are the five movies on our list.
I hope you found something interesting.
I hope you found at least one of them that you would like to watch.
As I said, these are the most popular, the most beloved, the most iconic Christmas movies of all time here in the United States.
They span different decades.
There's even an animated version and a comedy.
So hopefully you found one that you'd be willing to watch or even multiple.
If you get the chance to please check them out, watch them, practice your listening comprehension skills, get exposure to English.
As I've said before, listening comprehension, having that contact time with the language is so important when you're trying to learn the language and when you're trying to improve your fluency and your vocabulary.
And of course, it helps with your cultural awareness.
You see how Christmas is portrayed here in the United States and how it's just represented in that movie experience and the movie culture.
If you liked this episode, if you like hearing about these recommendations and these film recommendations, leave a comment.
Please tell me about it.
So I know to do more of these, there are plenty of films that I could recommend.
There is so much when it comes to American films.
So if you are interested, if you like that, let me know.
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